Damaging winds are set to redevelop across
south-eastern Australia from Thursday night,
and with a lot of heat around the country we will also see elevated fire dangers
for some areas. First, let's have a look
at what we've seen over the past 24 hours. And starting off with the satellite images
from Wednesday morning, we see plenty of cloud and vigorous winds
pushing across the south of the country and that's ahead of this next cold front,
which is currently making its way across
south-western parts of Western Australia. Of course, if you have been in New South
Wales, Victoria or Tasmania, you will have noticed the widespread
damaging to destructive wind gusts on Wednesday, and having a look
at some of those wind observations. First, starting off with these orange dots
of winds of up to 90 km/h we have seen those all the way from
north-east New South Wales across into the south-east
of South Australia. The red dots are wind
gusts of above 90 km/h and we've seen that through some metro areas, including Sydney,
Wollongong, Melbourne and Hobart. And finally, the purple dots destructive wind gusts
of above 125 km/h mostly about the south coast
and western Tasmania, but we have seen wind gusts as high as
161 km/h at Hogan Island. These winds have now eased
into Thursday morning, but they will redevelop from Thursday
night and into Friday morning. And the current warning situation
shows, with a cold front across Western Australia, We've still got a Damaging Wind
Warning across the south coast that will ease on Thursday afternoon, but then the focus shifts
across to the south-east of the country and the detail
will really be in the timing. So, from Thursday night, we'll see winds
increasing across the Grampians in Victoria, as well as elevated parts of
Victoria and New South Wales. In addition western Tasmania.
Then, into Friday morning we'll see these damaging winds
extending through parts of south-eastern New South Wales, the rest of Victoria
and the rest of Tasmania. If you're in South Australia winds increase in the south from Friday
morning and up towards Kangaroo Island into Friday evening and of course, with these strong winds
we have seen over the last few days, there are plenty of weakened trees
and debris lying around and with these winds coming back,
we could see similar impacts across similar areas that did see the winds over
the last few days. We also do have a Flood Watch Current and
that covers much of the Tasmanian state. We do already have minor flooding
occurring with warnings current and the rain will really start to pick up from Friday morning
and into the afternoon, and we could see rainfall totals over the next
5 to 7 days of 100-300 mm. It is also important to point out that,
with the heat lying across large parts of Australia, this wind will lead
to elevated fire dangers. Starting off on Thursday,
we do see high to extreme fire dangers in parts of Western Australia. But then on Friday,
heat pushes to the east coast and we have high fire dangers again
for Sydney and the Illawarra and much of southern Queensland. And on Saturday we do see high fire danger
continuing for the Illawarra. And so, what can we expect
in terms of the winds? Starting off with Thursday, we see this
cold front approaching from the west with winds above the surface
really wrapping up across western Victoria and western Tasmania. Then into Friday
we do see some very large waves coming through and so we have also issued
a Coastal Hazard Warning that's for damaging surf and abnormally
high tides along the Victorian coastline. Through Friday, that cold front will move through with plenty of vigorous winds
behind that into Saturday, but then into Sunday we see another cold
front making its way from the far south and that's likely to bring further Damaging Wind Warnings right across the south-east and those will be with us until Monday. So, with plenty of wind around, the risk
of flooding and elevated fire dangers make sure we have the latest forecast
and warnings and you can get that from the website
or our social media channels and please stay safe.